Archive for March, 2002

Oh yes, something else I did yesterday was fill out an inordinate amount of rebate forms for various products. I never saw this in Britain, but tons of places here seem to do it. For example with the tax program, TaxCut Deluxe, I had a rebate for part of the cost of the software, also for the State filing edition and for e-filing the taxes, with each rebate request going to a different place. The other rebates are for Emma’s and my new mobile phones. With a deal from LetsTalk.com, we get the whole cost of the phone back – $50 for each phone from LetsTalk, and $50 for each phone from AT&T. Pretty good deal. However, each of the rebates takes up to 10 weeks to be processed and returned. Hopefully this blog post will remind me when I’ve sent the requests to each place, and I’ll let you know when they arrive.

Due to a rather extreme amount of overtime in the last few weeks, I’ve taken yesterday (Maundy Thursday) and today (Good Friday) off. And it’s fantastic – I could get used to this. I spent a fair amount of yesterday morning filing our taxes, and today I’ve been doing crosswords. Not that I spend all of my days off in front of the computer – the weather’s been great these couple of days so I was out yesterday afternoon and am planning a trip somewhere today also.

However, that’s as long as I don’t get too sidetracked by SodaPlay. I saw a thing about it in Time magazine, and decided to give it a try. Basically you can build or play with “animals” which you construct using mass, muscles and springs. This gives you a little line-creature which you can have walk around your screen, you can pick it up, change the gravity and friction of its world etc. Some of them can be really cute and you feel like a bit of a meany for shaking it around, but it’s only a computer… Anyway, I recommend that you try it out if you have the rest of the day free.

though I say so myself, last night was something of a culinary success. People who know me, know that I love cooking and trying out new things. So last night I put together a pork fillet, some fresh fennel, dried apricots, green onions, thyme, garlic and an apple. Brown it all in a pan (Le Crueset of course), add a bit of water, then cover it and throw (or gently place) it into the oven at 400F for about 20 minutes. It all came out well, smelling and tasting delicious, with a nice amount of gravy from the meat and fruit. I guess pork needs the moisture and goes well with all the fruit flavors. Besides, if you make too much, as I did as usual, it’s mostly fruit so it’s good for you, right?

I chortled over this BBC article about a UK health insurance company knocking my former hometown of Aberdeen, Scotland. But I have to say that I agree with the insurance company – if my employers were to relocate to Aberdeen I would consider it something of a disaster. The only good thing for me about moving there would be that I would be nearer my mum – maybe it’s because I grew up there, but I find the place more than a little bit stifling.